http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-deer-death-chronic-wasting-disease-20180725-story.html# waiting for (soon to be Ex-) Gov. Rauner's signature (don't hold your breath - he ain't doing anything remotely controversial before the election; so this will sit on his desk.) Not sure how I feel about this. As much as I hate the forced culls; Illinois has done a pretty good job at slowing CWD. Sounds like the only people who are really pushing this are associated with the Industry. Nowhere is there any compelling evidence produced or cited that Illinois deer "need" this. Just some opinion that deer "need" more nutrients in their diets. I suspect the deer don't "need" it; but trophy hunters and supplement industries think they do. My favorite quote from the story: “Our whole landscape is this breadbasket of food for wildlife, and we have a history of having some of the largest deer that are produced anywhere, and yet Illinois is supposed to be deficient, our deer are supposed to be nutritionally deficient — even though they have evolved over the eons in concert with the landscape that’s available to them? “Suddenly, they are in need of man taking care of them, or they’re just not going to be healthy by themselves?” Shelton asked, pausing to laugh. “It’s preposterous.” I love big bucks and huge racks as much as the next hunter; but the overall health of the state herd is more important than another 20-30" on a few deer. I'd rather have a bunch of 100-130" deer running around than a very few 180" deer and a bunch of emaciated zombies staggering around the fields and carcasses stinking up the woods..
My local feed mill that is a family business that has been around for 4 generations farming in my area is extinct for the most part. 70% of their sales are bird and deer feeding products. I love the people that live in the gated community to the east that feed the bucks.
Isn't Illinois sort of the gold standard as far as containing the spread of cwd in states that have it in their deer herd? You look at the spread of cwd in Illinois since the time of its discovery to the spread in wisconsin in that same time and the difference is night and day. Why are they going to mess with something that seems to be working.
Deer land leasing is big big business in Illinois and I'm worried that this will lead to what are in effect fence-less deer farms; and I can't think of anything more dangerous when it comes to CWD.
I believe it’s a 2 year study by the U of I collage of Veterinary Medicine to study the effects in select counties. Down here in my neck of the woods, I don’t see the point. Lot of grain left in the fields. IMO, it’s not much different than small food plots.
more great CWD news from Pennsylvania: https://www.americanhunter.org/arti...-sees-dramatic-increase-in-the-spread-of-cwd/ Michigan cases are exploding, too...
not yet; and I doubt it will be signed before November if at all. The "Republican" governor is in a losing battle and he is an abject coward anyway. Unless there's a huge campaign donation on the other side of it I highly doubt there's any way he's doing anything remotely controversial before the election. He's literally hiding behind his wife's skirt for the rest of the year.
so I did some quick intranets research. Basically, IL Senator Chapin Rose (R) has a giant boner for the deer supplement industry. He is the sponsor of the bill currently sitting on the Governor's desk; which contains an amendment with a proposed 5 year experiment on "if" feeding non-captive deer contributes to spread of disease. http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=2493&GAID=14&GA=100&DocTypeID=SB&LegID=109238&SessionID=91 that bill replaces this one; which not-so-coincidentally was also sponsored by Sen. Rose in 2017 (failed to pass) which basically just legalized such feeding without any other studies or trials. http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/Bil...&SessionID=91&LegID=105542&SpecSess=&Session= Here's a story on it: http://wildlife.org/illinois-chapter-opposes-supplemental-deer-feeding-bill/ I had never heard of this group but apparently they are partnered with the BLM and are pro-conservation and pro-hunting. Here's their "position statement" on hunting: http://wildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/SP_Hunting.pdf Regardless; as we all know once one free-ranging deer in an area tests positive; it's already too late to stop the experiment. Sen. Rose wants to legalize feeding across the board so bad he tried to scuttle his own bill over the amendment containing the 5-year trial period; but did not have the votes to override it so pulled his motion. He's from a downstate district so (speculating here) there's a monetary incentive for his district to legalize it across the board.
Seems like an awful idea to me. Reality is we just don't need it. If deer need supplemental food we can plant it over a dispersed area. I also question whether this experiment will really show us anything. Unless they are actually experimenting in known CWD areas and testing if it's spreading faster with/without the feeding we really won't know. If they test in an area with no CWD of course we know what the result will be but we can't expect that same result in an area where there are infected deer already. Just my opinion.......
that's kind of my point. There is so much ag food downstate plus natural browse; why the heck to they need to do supplement feeding? Was there some big starved deer die-off in winter that I haven't heard of? Are the bucks just not sporting enough horn? Anybody who knows anything about biology knows that when a lot of animals (particularly the same species) congregate at a specific point (ie mineral deposits/sites) the chances of spreading disease increases. This natural fact is particularly applicable to whitetail bucks in regards to CWD. How can there be a need to make the deer "more healthy and resistance to disease" in an area that DOESN'T HAVE THE DISEASE? To my knowledge, there is no data supporting nutrition being a factor in resistance to CWD infection; if that were the case then how do captive deer populations have such a high prevalence of infection? No better fed/supplemented deer in the world than on a deer farm, yet captive herds can reach 90%+ infection rates if left unchecked.
You guys are starting to sound like conspiracy theorists. It's legal in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Michigan, Kentucky, Minnesota, virtually every state in the NE and SE, etc. Those herds are doing just fine. CWD is not caused by feeding deer. the overwhelming majority of CWD cases are out west in Mule Deer and elk, where no type of feeding is legal unless you are the DNR. CWD in the Midwest and Eastern States has everything to do with captive deer and elk farms. throwing down a salt block to get trail camera pictures is not going to cause CWD to be any worse than it already is/isn't in a particular area.
there's that, also. How do you contest a negative? If after the experiment is over and no infected deer are found; then all you know is that there were likely no infected deer in the area to begin with. But the risks of having a sudden outbreak are much too high. If there are 1-2 infected deer in the area and one of those visits the feeder; you now expose every single deer that comes into the feeder to the disease. Long story short; the "need" for this is for man; not the animal.
The main issue I have is this is for commercial interests; not the deer. Anyone who says anything else is either ignorant or a liar. Or both. The deer in southern IL are doing fine without it. And the herd in MI is certainly not fine. There are now at least two massive outbreak areas in the middle of the state; both of which are believed to be directly attributable to captive deer farms. But people in MI bait and mineral like crazy; and how else do you think it spread so far so fast? I grew up in MI and absent mitigating factors such as disease certainly don't have any ethics concerns in regards to baiting; minerals, etc but why concentrate a deer herd in a hotzone for no reason? Or just a few miles from a known hotzone? And if an area doesn't have any known infection, but has a huge amount of natural browse and ag field feed available; why take the risk?
In wisconsin at least deer farms are big business and they fight tooth and nail against any proposed changes they might have to do (think double fences ect.) And if you look at where the deer farms are in wisconsin is where you find the highest concentration of cwd in the state. As far as feeding deer I also agree that doesn't contribute to the spread of cwd. In fact you could make an argument it slows down the spread of cwd. The sad truth is that there is no correct solution to th is problem until a vaccine type solution is created. And unfortunately there will never be funding for that.
How so? Not being argumentative; I would just like to know on what data/study/rationale that is based.
No study to my knowledge. It's a theory I heard Grant Woods talk about on a podcast once. If deer are being fed in one area their home range decreases keeping deer concentrated to a smaller area. All hypothetical of course.
